February 2015

Dec 14, 2011

The listification of American journalism didn't begin with the Forbes 400, but I think we accelerated the process. Once Forbes began turning out magazines the size of a small-city phone book, we quickly got orders to publish more and more lists, until even junior staffers were saying to each other that the quality of our product was suffering as a result.

We had no clue what was coming.

Lists are huge on the net, in some part because the medium lends itself to quick hits, but also because publishers can sell each click to the next item as another page view. And JR and Jeff are right, most of the wrap-ups and predictions are pretty stupid.

Worse, it's easy to assume that every feature presented in that form -- even those that involve actual reporting -- is guilty of the same sins.

Also, the David Letterman Top Ten frequently was funny in the '80s, kids.

It's easy to criticize the media's end-of-year quirk (I do it), but they summarize, listify, and predict for a reason: readers seem to like lists.

The page-view game is obviously a new one, but it's seductive. I've known for a while what they're trying to do, but some lists sound too interesting to pass up. The 10 worst trades in baseball history? I've got to see how many times my Cubbies show up on that one.

Letterman in the '80s was a phenomenon. You could pretty much assume that he was what 20-somethings were watching. More than once, something bizarre would happen in Stupid Pet Tricks or with Brother Theodore (or the time an entire show was overdubbed with funny voices), and I'd get a call from across the country: "Did you see that?!"